Beltline Bar

Love the food! Very busy tonight had a bit of a wait. Order an appetizer took forever but the manager came right over apologized and took them off the bill and we shared a free dessert! Love this place will definitely be back!

Like so many other GR natives, I have been to the Beltline Bar several times throughout my life. When it comes to Mexican restaurants, I’m a burrito aficionado and nothing else. It is my life’s calling to always get the burrito and here at the Beltline Bar, it is home to the one and only «Burreto Magnifico «!!!
The Burreto Magnifico as they used to call it, now known as ‘The Famous Wet Burrito’ is a pretty decent burrito packed with beef and beans, smothered in their homemade burrito sauce then put to bed with a layer of cheese. I say you must also get sour cream, onions and jalapenos as well (all on the side). It really pulls it all together nicely. I have grown up on and have always enjoyed this burrito. I’ve probably have had better but at least this burrito always seemed constantly satisfying. We usually get chips and salsa for the table but I think their hot sauce is weak and watered down. Easily solved by asking for and adding hot sauce!
My significant other often gets the enchilada. Being raised Dutch, her family would tell me how they would often got here and get one enchilada and a small side of salad dressing (often given for free). They would then make a salad out of the shredded lettuce and other bits that comes as garnish on the plate. You can get an entire mean for a couple bucks the family would say.
They serve OK margaritas but the quality can vary. It is great to come here on Cinco de Mayo for their margarita drink specials. All day long the margaritas are greatly reduced in price and they keep them coming like a non-​stop flow of watered down alcohol.
The restraint itself seems like it has been getting stickier over time. They have done some minor renovations but you can’t help to notice that the DNA layers is getting thick over everything. My biggest complaint about this place is all the time I have spent waiting to get seated. I never understand this because often there are empty tables. Usually being just a party of two, I think they won’t seat us until a table with only two seats comes along. When we do get seated, it has too many times been in some crappy two person table stuck near the kitchen or the bathrooms. My advice, if you go here when they are busy come as group bigger than two. If you come when they are not busy (ie: not dinner time), you can get a really comfortably seat and fell very relaxed.
Overall you get a pretty good value at the Beltline Bar. It is decently priced, reasonable large portions and if you go here at the right time, it can be quite enjoyable.

Best margaritas in town and most authentic Mexican food known to man kind! Wait staff kind and easy to speak with. Menu has multiple choices and everything is done perfectly. The food is homemade and authentic if you are craving great food, strong drinks and good company head to Beltline Bar!!! #bestinGR

What a delicious meal! The ground beef enchiladas were a perfect balance of flavor, and the chicken fajitas were so juicy! Our waitress Hannah was so kind and quick, we had our food about ten minutes after ordering. Our table never ran out of water or chips or salsa. And the manager Beth was so kind! Definitely will come back with my husband soon!

Its Mid Western Mexican food, its nothing amazing. Service was good but taco bell is just as good.

Not authentic Mexican food but not bad. Beltlines happy hour specials are worth giving this place a chance. Portions are generous and there are plenty of good choices on their menu. I got a combination special that came with a chimichanga and a burrito, very good. The hot sauce is a bit on the weak side. It has more tomato flavor then it has spices. I’ll be back to try their other specials.

Classic Grand Rapids grub. This is a great place to hangout after work and a great place to eat. My last experience here was delicious. I would eat here more if I lived closer, but it is a destination place for people. I wish my margarita was better but my food was fantastic. The missing star is because the décor is a tad bit outdated but it adds to the charm.

Besides the long lines I love this place best Burrito in GR and wonderful service.

Me and 7 friends went to BB August 15, 2015 for lunch. I must say it was a less than stellar experience. It started with the waitress taking our order and not remembering what we ordered. She finally took out drink orders. She tried to carry to many things at once. Crash .boom ! «Down goes Fraizer «that was the sound of 2 of the four top shelf Long Islands falling to the floor. Now we had to wait another 10 minutes for the drinks. Clearly the bartender who made the first round did a better job. The last had way too much sour mix. The server had them remade. After another 15 minutes our food orders were taken. One person ordered a chicken wet burrito which arrived with no chicken. Her entrée had to be remade. By the time she received it we were done eating. After all of this no manager came to check on us. We had to request one. He agreed to comp the burrito but it was still on the bill. Now we wait again for the server to total all bills correctly. Mind you, she asked in the beginning how were the checks being handled. The total experience was over 2 hours. Over 20 minutes of time was spent waiting on the server to figure out the bills. Not an ideal BB experience.

Think of this place as Taco Bell on steroids — or in other words, «Mexican» food for people who don’t know Mexican food. It reminded me of some other bad Mexican restaurants — La Señorita comes to mind.
Good news — service was terrific — friendly and prompt. Chips were good. Salsa was more like a purée but had decent flavor. The «famous wet burrito» was pretty good (literally, that’s what they call it on the menu — it lived up to the hype). Acceptable selection of beers on tap. Beer and food prices were reasonable.
Bad news — The Chicken Fajitas were the worst I’ve ever had, ever. The peppers and onions were sitting around in a pot somewhere and thus came out to the table limp, like they had been sitting in a stew pot somewhere. The chicken was without flavor, probably from Gordon’s, I don’t know.
The décor on the inside is right out of the 1970’s — I couldn’t decide if this was a good thing or a bad thing. I love retro places but this one just seemed a little dated and worn out in places.
Summary — If you value quantity over quality, then the Beltline Bar is a good choice for you. You won’t go away hungry but you won’t have any «wow» food moments. Lower your expectations and you’ll have a nice time.

I really don’t get why this place has poor reviews. They have pretty good food. Large portions. We have always had good service.

I really cant believe this place has been around so long and is popular. The food is blah and seems to be cooked mainly in the microwave. I ordered their nachos (which come with beef and diced ham). I thought why not it must be good that way. Wrong. It tasted like spam. The beef had no taco seasoning, and the whole thing was just covered in green onions and regular onions (So much that I could barley see the chips and cheese!). The six of us barley ate any of them. The other person I was with ordered the seafood enchiladas. She said it was just imitation crab that was rubbery and seemed like it had been left out all day. She said it tasted gross. She ate half of only 1 out of 2. Someone else ordered the fajitas and they just did not have any seasoning on the steak and looked blah. The steak look like it was previously frozen strips and came from a bag. The Margaritas were margaritas, but nothing special. The desserts were good. We had the fried cheesecake and the brownie Sunday. If I want spin off Mexican food, I would rather go to On the Boarder. I gave them two stars because the place was clean for the most part and I felt bad giving them one star. The service was good but the food was just blah. The lighting is also gloomy. The fireplace is just a plastic log that is plugged in. That kinda made me chuckle.

If judging the food I’d give this place a zero but judging the drinks I’ll give it a few stars. I’ve tried a few items including the quesadilla and the Baja egg rolls. Neither were appetizing and both got sent back after a few bites. This is not Mexican food. Not even close. Being Hispanic and seeing this food labeled as anything but American is laughable. As I said in the beginning the best thing about this place is the drinks. Nick is an awesome bartender and when my girlfriends and I come in he knows our drink orders without us having to ask. The bomber is a favorite the margaritas are delicious. It would just be nice to come in some day and get some decent food.

Nothing close to MEXICAN food or Spanish food! I Hispanic. I don’t think this is close to food at all!

I went on a busy Friday evening for the first time. The wet steak burrito had my name on it. I ordered it and a margarita. The burrito came with a lettuce and tomato garnish, which nobody would want to eat. The lettuce was pale and the tomato was an end piece that still had the core in it. I would have rather had the burrito on the plate by itself. I did not care for the black bean and corn salsa that came with it either. It tasted days old. The burrito itself was very good until… the people at the table next to me got up to leave. The waiter came by and wiped down the table with a nasty old dirty rag that I could tell hadn’t been washed all day by the smell of it. It was foul. To make matters worse, there was a fly in the area that landed on the table several times while I was eating. Now, unfortunately, rather than remembering the wet burrito, my first recollection is the fly and the old dank rag smell.
Please make sure service staff use clean towels. Please ask them not to spray windex all over the tables if there are people eating close by, and don’t garnish the plate if it doesn’t help with the appearance of the dish.

We’ve been eating at Beltline bar since I was 5.
The food isn’t authentic. The food isn’t mind blowing. But what it is, is a darn good value for the money. The wet burritos are an Americanized deliciousness. Don’t get too hyped up about them or they will disappoint you, but get the right amount of hyped up. They are huge, filled with the right stuff, and coated with even more of the right stuff. As a result, they taste great. There’s tons of cheese, tons of meat, tons of everything. You can eat it for two meals if you want!
The ambience has definitely decayed the past 15 years. But the prices have not risen close to as quickly as similar restaurants. This is the type of sit down place a family of four can walk out with a thirty or forty dollar bill! You walk away feeling very good about your meal. The drinks even typically pour heavy.
My suggestions for the restaurant: focus on quality a bit more than advertising. Renovate the place. Improve the beer options. Recapture the «mid» crowd in addition to the «low» crowd. While cheaper customers drive volume, they are inherently lower value and can drive other customers away in the long term — as your Unilocal reviews suggest. I realize the place isn’t as busy as it was 15 years ago, but the response is improved quality in addition to improved outreach.
My suggestions for consumers: have a wet burrito and a beer the next time you want a fun meal in Grand Rapids with friends or family. You won’t be mad at me for recommending it. This is a Grand Rapids institution.

Only been here twice… will never go again.
First time we went our server was slow and forgetful but the food was decent. However after having eaten and ready for the check, our waitress was no where to be found. We were forced to sit and wait at least 15 minutes until someone was able to get us our bill
Going against our better judgement we went to the Belt line bar for lunch today. What a mistake. From the start the hostess was rather aloof and had no emotions. Our waitress was again slow but also grumpy. After an hour waiting for our food and asking when we could expect it, she responded with a grunt that the cook was backed up and then preceded to walk away. Sometime later she walks back to our table and tells us someone stole our food.
And with that we just left. At least they comped our chips… but I’m gonna need that hour of my life back.

I don’t care what you say — really, I don’t. My fav wet burrito in GR hands down.
Always have great service — last visit server was mos def new. When I got home I noticed my receipt had the wrong burrito and some extras thrown on there… awesome. Got a server on her 1^st day.
Whatevs, good food, good drinks, good friends. Nuff said.

I heard a lot about the Beltline Bar and their «famous burrito» — so it was with positive anticipation that I ventured to try food and see what they were all about.
The atmosphere (for a lunch hour) was upbeat and busy — and you can tell they have a deep customer base and following. They also had some decent promotional deals (for example I get the famous burrito and a beer for about $ 8) — but you can see they have a lot of others to offer throughout the week and a different times of day.
One thing that strikes me is the heavy advertising for the Beltline Bar. It would seem that a restaurant that simply had «great food» would not need to rest their laurels on highway billboard signs. People will come if the food is great (not to be confused with bar drink and food promotion’s — that is a given considering the style of bar/​restaurant).
The «Famous» Burrito was good — but I was not blown away by any stretch. In fact — it bordered more on average than anything «famous». Their «wet» sauce was not anything exemplifying. In fact — can pretty much buy the same thing out of a can at the local store (I’m sure they will deny that). But believe me — there was nothing identifiable about it. It just slightly better than what you get out of a can.
I believe (from what I gathered) their tailored technique is to stuff everything inside the burrito (lettuce, tomato, etc.) as opposed to other styles of wet burrito that you might get with the sauce and those toppings on the outside. But, you wouldn’t know the difference and might even question if they indeed followed through on that. The other component (leading me to call pre-​made all the way) is the plate and sauce were boiling hot when brought to the table; so you wait for that to cool down but you could tell the burrito had been cooked separately when you finally could bite into it. It’s temp was luke warm comparatively. All I’m saying is — they aren’t cooking to order here.
Overall — you could make the same thing at home easily. What really struck me is I was getting a «lunchtime» rate and beer to boot — but this burrito normally sells for around $ 10. That is really overpriced for what it is (including size). You also do not receive anything with it (like let’s say rice) so they are definitely making a profit on the dinnertime deal. Factor in they charge you for chips and salsa — sorry I was not that impressed (it would be one thing if the burrito really did have some mouthwatering and unique factor — but it does not). You could go home and probably feed the entire family the same product for not much more than the cost of a dinnertime portion.
To be fair — I would like to try other parts of the menu and they look like they may have even better options than the «famous» burrito. So I will indeed try this place again. But if the «famous» burrito is the benchmark — I fear I might be disappointed — and that was the rave everyone was telling me about (sorry — don’t agree).
In conclusion — this was an average meal and I want to be clear I have had much worse experiences and food. For a beer and a bite — it’s an okay stop. I’m sure it’s a social hotspot based on what I could tell at noon hour. But — there is little doubt this is a pre-​made burrito and there is nothing enduring about it to make you go back and say «I have to have that again» — but maybe other menu items are their saving grace.

Who would have thought the weekend of the Winter beer Festival would also turn out to be International Margarita Day?
Who would have thought that Beltline bar would have been freaking PACKED with everyone enjoying such a fact… or was it just the key that Beltline was only charging $ 1 for a margarita.
I’ll take the $ 1 margaritas.
After the 45 minute wait for a table for 4… we devoured our table’s provision of chips and salsa. I think we had been given our share of margarita mix and tequila. The food was okay. We each tried something different when we ordered from the menu. Apparently they are known for the ‘wet’ burrito… But we all were rebels and stayed away from it. I had a combination platter of tacos… which turned out to be pretty tasty with the sauces that they used.
The service… was ungodly slow… but I would have to say that the place was packed beyond capacity. Everyone and their mothers were there enjoying $ 1 margaritas… so I have to let them slide on that one…
After more margaritas… I think we decided it would be great to get fried ice cream.
But we didn’t… and had one more margarita. :)